Gwyneth Paltrow Eats Only Steamed Vegetables at Carb-Filled Family Dinner

Gwyneth Paltrow Eats Only Steamed Vegetables at Carb-Filled Family Dinner

Gwyneth Paltrow gives new meaning to the phrase "veg out." The actress, 40, has worked hard to get the body she has now, and she's determined to keep it -- even if that means eating just steamed veggies while everyone around her chows down on pasta and pizza.

That was the scene at New York eatery Serafina East Hampton on Aug. 20, when Paltrow and her husband, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, took kids Apple, 8, and Moses, 6, to dinner with a couple of friends. A source tells Us Weekly that the group ordered a carb-filled feast, but that the Oscar winner didn't indulge in any of it.

"Gwyneth didn't touch the carbs," the source notes. "She only ate the steamed vegetables. So everyone else had a pizza and pasta feast while she ate her vegetables and drank sparkling water."

Her family, meanwhile, had no qualms about loading up. After digging into plates of spaghetti and pizza margherita, they sampled several of the restaurant's desserts, including chocolate souffle, apple pie, and ice cream.

"They seemed really happy, lots of smiles," the source tells Us of the group.

Paltrow has said in the past that her attitude toward food changed after her dad, Bruce Paltrow, got sick several years ago. "I began to consider the effects of food when my father was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1998," she told Beach magazine earlier this year. "I started to research anti-cancer diets in hopes that he would try to hit it from all angles."

When Bruce died in October 2002 at age 58 due to complications of the cancer and pneumonia, Paltrow decided to eliminate dairy and gluten from her own diet.

"It's about being mindful about what you are putting in," she explained. "Good whole foods are the way we have eaten for generations. It's amazing how good you feel when you just cut out the processed stuff."

That said, the Goop founder does have her guilty pleasures. "I love Starbucks -- I'll have a cappuccino," she confessed to British Cosmopolitan in July. "My guilty snack in the U.K. is cheese, and in America, things on buns: a lobster roll and French fries, or a turkey burger with cheese."